


Every Promise Don’t Work Out That Way

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 4x20 missing scene, F/M, also all the 1x21 parallels, because reasons, smut on a plane, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:13:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6820666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>4x20 missing scene, 1x21 parallels. Felicity remembers the first time they got dressed up for an underground casino.</p><p>“You remember the dress?” Her attempt at incredulity is supposed to ease the pressure between them. It does not.</p><p>“Yes,” he answers, never tearing his eyes away. “It was red.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Promise Don’t Work Out That Way

_4x20 missing scene, Felicity remembers the first time they got dressed up for an underground casino.  
_

_A/N: I could not handle the 1x21 parallels in this ep. This is also the closest I’ve gotten to smut in a long while, and I’m a little nervous. Shout out to[MachaSWicket](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket), who suggested [sexual tension on a plane](http://machawicket.tumblr.com/post/143872112102/olicity-i-believe-in-you-olicity-aesthetics) and thanks to [lerayon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lerayon/pseuds/lerayon) & [YellowFlicker](http://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowFlicker/pseuds/YellowFlicker) for some last minute cheerleading._

_Title from “[Sandcastles](http://genius.com/Beyonce-sandcastles-lyrics)” by the Queen. Shoutout to everyone else who has given their life to Lemonade. No link, but just go listen to it quick._

 

**Every Promise Don’t Work Out That Way**

It’s not until they’re safely back on the Palmer corporate jet that everything starts to catch up with her. Oliver is characteristically quiet, no doubt mentally berating himself for their latest setback, but Felicity feels like she’s on a high wire. She’s looking for something to balance her out, and the silence only makes her shakier. Memories will have to do.

They’ve done this before, more than a few times. She dragged Oliver into several casinos on their trip around the world, even staged her own illicit blackjack game at their hotel in Monaco. But for some reason, her mind goes directly to their first time, when she and the Hood went undercover at Dominic Alonzo’s underground operation.

It feels like a lifetime ago, and it just about is, considering the history they’ve built between themselves since then. It had been so early in their partnership that Felicity still had to convince him to let her go on the mission. Today, Oliver hadn’t even bothered trying to stop her from accompanying him to Hub City.

Her hair had been swept to the side, her dress a similar shade as that night years ago, though Oliver wore a different kind of suit this time around. Not that Felicity was complaining. She likes him fine in green leather, but he’s almost irresistible in formal wear. Plus, he’d worn that aftershave that drives her crazy, a scent that nearly got them caught messing around backstage at a campaign rally early in his bid for mayor. That just wasn’t playing fair.

She keeps forgetting that she’s not supposed to want him anymore, and it’s even easier to slip on a night like this. But, in all fairness, it’s hard to shake a habit of nearly four years cold turkey.

Their failure at Alonzo’s casino had felt devastating at the time, she remembers, the mistaken belief that Walter was dead hitting both of them with heavy doses of grief and despair tinged with guilt. But it was nothing compared to the way Oliver’s face had fallen today, as the mystical woman dismissed him, and, in the process, verbally confirmed his worst fears about the darkness inside him.

When Felicity first met him, Oliver thought he was a monster, undeserving of love and unable to be redeemed. Four years later, through their ups and downs together, it hasn’t stopped breaking her heart. She pulled away in the hopes of protecting herself, but it still hurts just the same.

Her mother was right, some things just don’t change.

She had been scheming on another way to raise his spirits, trying to figure out an improved strategy against a seemingly unbeatable opponent – just like that night she found him sitting in the dark on the floor of the old lair after he had learned the truth behind Walter’s kidnapping. But then John had called, and they went on autopilot, hightailing it to the jet for the short trip back to Star City, immediate problems superseded by a friend in need.

“Do you remember the first time we did this?” Felicity asks absently once they’ve reached their cruising altitude. She’s certain that he does, but she wonders if he’ll tell her the truth.  “Clandestine mission, undercover at an secret casino? It was kind of like this one.”

“I remember the dress you wore.” Oliver answers almost immediately, and when she turns to look at him, his eyes widen a little bit, like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Behind the surprise though, is the heated look he’s been giving her all night.

It’s always been there, this awareness simmering between them, since long before they got together and fell apart again. But tonight, away from their city and their friends and their problems, it’s like they’ve both given in again, raising the temperature enough for it to be palpable. Oliver’s staring at her like he wants to eat her alive, and Felicity knows she’s looking right back like she’ll let him.

“You remember the dress?” Her attempt at incredulity is supposed to ease the pressure between them. It does not.

“Yes,” he answers, never tearing his eyes away. _“It was red.”_

It’s too much. Her face and neck flush to match her hot pink gown, and she has to physically move to escape the tractor beam gaze that tells her he knows exactly what he’s said.

“I should change.” She retreats to the jet’s private bedroom, where they had stashed their duffel bags, but unfortunately, she can’t leave her brain behind. Thoughts of Oliver, memories of their life together, rush at her, one after another. It’s less like a flood and more of an avalanche, as their weight of their collective meaning threatens to smother her.

 _“I’ve forgotten how good you are at this,”_ he had remarked at the blackjack table, in a low voice that nearly made her shudder, and it had reminded her of the night they played a private game in a motel outside Coast City, every lost hand inching them closer to combustion.

Felicity watched him wrestle with Ersin Fortuna’s dark magic and was tormented by the memory of watching helplessly as Oliver and John Constantine went to war for Sara’s soul. 

Later, her reminded her that she was the most recent person to tell him that he’d always be person the island made him, and she thought back to a night under the stars in the Italian countryside.

 _“I’m so proud of you,”_ she had told him when she ran out of ways to tell him that she loved him in so many words.  _“You’ve come so far, you’ve made so many strides. I wanted the Oliver you were, but who you are now, that’s the man I need.”_

The girl who had gone undercover with him three years ago didn’t know anything about what it meant to love Oliver Queen, but Felicity realizes now, with startling clarity, that she had anyway.

That’s why she’s still in her bra and underwear, sitting on the bed in a daze when Oliver opens the door to the bedroom, dressed in only his slacks, shirt and jacket bunched in his hand. He freezes at the sight of her, eyes going wide.

“I needed…sorry…my leathers…” She can almost feel his gaze work its way down her body, even as he steps back and clears his throat. “I thought you were done. I knocked.”

He offers the excuse like he’s guilty of something, even though they both know he’s seen her in far less, many times over. But, to be fair, she can’t count the number of times she’s seen him shirtless, and that apparently never gets old. Her hands itch with the desire to touch him, and some kind of magnetic force pulls her to her feet in front of him.

“Sorry, I…” She doesn’t know what to tell him. _I want you right now. I need you all the time. I know our friends are in trouble, but I can’t stop thinking about us._

Thankfully, Oliver decides to talk first.

“Earlier, you said that… You said that you were hurt, that that was the reason you...” He stumbles over his words, but she remembers the moment and reads his meaning clear as day. “Felicity, do you… Do you think there’s a chance that you’ll ever be able to forgive me?”

She knows what her answer is supposed to be. She made a promise to herself, a vow on the broken hearts of her mother and all the duped women before her. But, at the same time, she swore she’d never lie to him.

“I want to,” she admits, balling her hands into fists at her sides to keep from reaching out. “More than anything. I miss you so much.”

Oliver’s eyes widen, just slightly, and she takes that as evidence that he understands her use of the present tense. This isn’t a sea change, this is a rip current, pulling them both under.

“Goddammit, I’m sorry I…” He starts a sentence he clearly has no intention of finishing, and Felicity gasps aloud as he slants his mouth over hers, wrapping his arms around her waist as she threads her hands into his hair.

His back hits the bedroom door at the same time he slides her tongue into her mouth and she startles at the sensation, and at a sudden realization that threatens to knock her sideways.

“This is the first time,” she breathes, eyes flooding with emotion, “the first time I’ve kissed you standing up since the night you…”

Oliver cuts off her bittersweet memory with his lips, pressing his face to hers, so flush that Felicity can feel that his cheeks are wet with matching tears.

“I meant everything I said that night,” he admits between pecking down the side of her neck to the slope of her shoulder. “I’m never going to stop wanting you forever.”

Her breath catches and he swallows the sound in another breathtaking kiss. God, she’s missed every single thing about this, about him, about the two of them together. Her hands slide down to make quick work of his belt, sliding his pants down and wrapping her legs around his waist before she can think twice about it. He grunts in response, turning her towards the door and pressing her up against it.

It’s just like she remembers and somehow, so much better. He kisses her deep and she nearly goes slack, remembering lazy mornings in bed and dinners by candlelight. The feeling of his entire body, hard against her, the delicious pressure where she needs it most, it threatens to overwhelm her. When he adds his own hands to the mix, one clutching at her ass, and one working its way under her bra to twist at her sensitive nipple, she cries out. “Oh…Oliver!”

His hips rock against her, and somehow the angle and ridge of his erection slide her panties to the side a little more with each thrust, like their bodies remember how to do this without them.

“The dress you wore to the casino that night.” Oliver’s voice comes out in gasping breaths as he sucks lightly at her lower lip. “It was red. It had a slit up the the back. I spent all night wondering what it might feel like to spin you around and run my hand all the way up your thigh.”

Felicity makes an embarrassing sound of arousal that can only be called a groan, rolling her hips to meet Oliver’s thrusts as he pants into her neck in rhythm. _“Want. You. Forever.”_ Then, her stomach flips unpleasantly, and it takes her a long moment to realize that it’s because they’ve started to descend.

“Hang on.” Felicity stops herself from adding, _“This can’t happen”_ as she pulls back, partly because it seems almost inevitable. But not now. That much she’s certain of. “We need to focus.”

Oliver nods, even as his fingers flex against her hips, blunt nails scraping against the skin just above the thin line of her panties. She tries her best to suppress the shiver that rushes through her, and takes a few steps back, futilely hoping he won’t notice.

“Right,” he agrees. He’s still looking at her with lustful hunger, but also with as much hope as she’s seen since the night he was down in front of her on one knee, and Felicity’s stomach swoops. For the first time in a while, she lets herself think, just briefly, about forever. “Focus.”

Then, she hands him his duffel bag and they dress together in silence before making their way back to their seats in the main cabin. Felicity’s not sure who actually reaches out first, but as soon as they’ve buckled in, they’re holding hands, bracing themselves for the descent.


End file.
